Here's What You Really Need To Know About The Attack That Happened In Benghazi

We're focused on the wrong thing.

Tragedy struck on Sept. 11, 2012, when the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked by terrorists and burned to the ground. Four Americans and 10 others were killed.

An investigation after the incident would find that the State Department, led by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made errors that contributed to the severity of the attack. Though Clinton has admitted making mistakes, some — typically Republicans — believe that this issue is much deeper and that criminal negligence took place. In the years that followed, suspicions of willful wrongdoing morphed into full-blown conspiracy and several taxpayer-funded investigations have taken place.

Because of this, it is difficult to find objective information on what actually happened.

In his latest video for Vlogbrothers, Hank Green sought to explain the situation by taking an objective look at the attack and the political quagmire that followed.

Green starts by explaining that at the time of this attack, Libya had just come off its first civil war. Much of the world believed that the country had been quickly swept up in democracy, as was the goal of the revolution, but there were problems beneath the surface which would become impossible to ignore.

The fact the tension that remained in the area became abundantly clear when the attack occurred, with things spiraling out of control afterward.

"It was believed that Ambassador Stevens may still be alive; his body wasn't found at the consulate. But it turned out that a group of Libyans had tried to rescue him, pulled him out of the building and taken him to a nearby hospital where doctors were unable to resuscitate him," Green explained, before making note of one of the first of many conspiracies to arise from the tragedy.

"Some people saw pictures of the local Libyans trying to help Ambassador Stevens and put text on those images, saying that he was being attacked or tortured by those Libyans."

From there, the mistrust and misinformation grew.

In the three years that have followed the attack, there have been eight congressional investigations into the matter. As Green points out, there were only two investigations that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. As none of these inquiries have yielded new information that fit the conspiracy narrative that so many are willing to use taxpayer money to help prove, it increasingly becomes an affront to the memory of those lost by reducing the tragedy to an expensive show of political posturing.

What is deserving of more attention, however, is how the attack affected those native to the city.

Many businesses and charitable organizations fled the area, which had devastating effects on the economy. Violent groups began fighting in the city and a second civil war broke out in 2014, with no resolution in sight.